Grad+Research+Symposium+Spring+2014

=Wednesday, May 14= =Sage 3510=

Title: Master Naturalists in Texas: forms of expertise in state sponsored social organizations
 * Karin Patze **

Abstract: The master naturalist (MN) certification program in Texas is a joint volunteer and education based outreach program sponsored by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and AgriLife, the county extension program supported by Texas A&M University. This paper examines one chapter, The El Camino Real MNs in Milam County, to understand how to characterize the challenges of “activist” groups who initially rely on the state for structure and support. The program trains participants to understand natural resource management issues and develop outreach programs that highlight native habitats for local plant and animal species. Additionally, participants collaborate with each other to develop new land management practices for both residential and open spaces in rural and urban areas. Furthermore, they assume new educational and leadership roles in the community through outreach programs and volunteerism. I focus on a new seed saving project, Floridus Milamexa, to understand how the chapter negotiates their relationships with state and national agencies as well as their local community. The essay highlights the challenges entailed in the changing role of expertise and chapter identity within the chapter as well as the everyday practices of members in the group.

 Title: "Subjective and Intersubjective Processes in Transnational Social Movements: The Challenges of Constructing Meaning, Identity, and Knowledge"
 * Wynne Hedlesky **

Abstract: This paper will begin to explore ways of thinking about simultaneously multi-scalar subjective and intersubjective processes in the context of transnational contentious politics, comparing the usefulness of some of social movement theory’s primary tools for analyzing such processes with other possible formulations, including “interactional” concepts such as the “trading zone” and “boundary object” from STS.

Title: Green Building Professionals: Thinking outside the box?
 * Carrie Drexel (EEVP M.S.))**

Abstract: The building sector’s energy consumption is expected to grow faster than the industry and transportation sector in the next few years [1], and building professionals have an important role in this future. This study aims to advance knowledge and understanding of the “green” building industry and how professionals understand and consider sustainability in their profession. This study will accomplish these aims using a mixed methods approach using market research, literature reviews, and interviews. The market research will review technologies and approaches used in the current market and emerging technologies and approaches for future use. The interviews will be conducted with industry professionals, policy and code creators, and building occupants. This study is important because our society is at the tipping point in our climate. The population is growing at an alarming rate and the materials used in built environments are leading to pollution, health costs, and loss of non-renewable natural resources. The results of this study demonstrate how professionals define sustainability, how professionals collaborate with other disciplines, and the successes of technologies and approaches used. Findings from this study indicate that the following kinds of change are called for: professional development, clear holistic changeable metrics, and market transformation. I feel prepared to carry out the study with my expertise in architecture, social science, and the building industry.

[1] "U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis." //U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)//.

 **Colin Garvey** Title: Intellectual Counter-Insurgency: Science for the People and the AAAS, 1969-1978  Abstract: At the 1978 meeting of the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, EO Wilson, author of the notorious tome, //Sociobiology// (1975), had a pitcher of ice-water poured over his head by some protesters who'd stormed the stage as he was to speak at a specially convened symposium on sociobiology. This story has been passed down through the academy on both sides of the Great Divide, used by scientists to decry radical protesters, and visa versa. The action is often falsely attributed to Science for the People (SftP), a radical social movement organization that had been actively challenging the "Sorry State of Science" at the annual AAAS meeting since 1969. The real culprits were members of the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), and SftP members stood up from the audience to decry the act immediately after it happened--yet SftP has been stuck with the dubious honor ever since. I ask, Why does it make a difference whether it was SftP or not? Why would SftP want to distinguish themselves as a group that does not douse geezers? How is it that a little ice-water could threaten to derail SftP's campaign against sociobiology? I suggest that the dominance of the "Ice-Water Incident" in the historical understanding of SftP obscures the larger, long-term intellectual counter-insurgency they were engaged in. Furthermore, the incident was precipitated by an uncritical personal attack, yet such violent tactics were explicitly //not// part of the repertoire of SftP's contentious political performances. By remembering them for such a base action, we erase from memory the potent and varied tactics they did employ--tactics which STS still stands to learn a lot from. Thus I use the Ice-Water Incident to revive a different image of SftP, and (re)introduce the significance of their legacy. Title: Restructuring Mis-care in Big Data Analysis
 * Lindsay Poirier **

Abstract: ‘Big data’ has emerged as a concept of both promise and peril – promise that flexible programmatic analysis of data can overcome the biases of human judgment, marked against the peril of surveillance and its discriminatory affordances. However, both of these discourses suggest that the problems of ‘big data’ arise from their capacity to illuminate some component of reality – they embody what boyd and Crawford have termed the “mythology of objectivity.” This paper makes a step towards debunking this mythology by showcasing how assumptions and biases become embedded in each step of the data analysis process. Notably, it highlights instances where ‘mis’-care in data practices has led to misrepresentations of certain people and produced tangible consequences for certain populations. However, the paper also sets forth that such malpractices do not derive from the data analysis technologies themselves but from the ways that researchers structure and employ them. Big data has the capacity to illuminate and direct attention to populations that had previously been ignored and proper care of data can make it useful despite the subjectivities embedded within it. I thus draw on three STS concepts – actor-network theory, Geoffrey Bowker’s infrastructural inversion, and Sandra Harding’s strong objectivity – and suggest the value of employing these concepts in a normative way can pragmatically restructure modes and norms for data-driven research.

Title:
 * Tahereh Saheb**

Abstract:


 * Elizabeth Anderson**

** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sustainability on campus: comparing RPI to AASHE’s standards **  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Abstract: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Colleges and universities are large institutions that use many resources and have the power to prepare and teach students for future careers. Sustainability is one aspect that they can focus on; to do this, sustainability audits can be done in preparation for future projects. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a STEM-oriented college in upstate New York. The author used a modified version of the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System to conduct a sustainability audit of Rensselaer. The percentage of points garnered by RPI placed the institution below the lowest level, Bronze, for the STARS rating system. In order to increase sustainability at RPI, a central sustainability office and comprehensive plan are needed. The result of RPI being more sustainable would benefit not only the environment now, but also in the future as RPI’s scientists and engineers make crucial decisions in their projects and research as graduates. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
 * ?? Laura Rabinow**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Title: Reimagining Energy Interventions: Policies, Practices, and Households in Transition
 * <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">James Wilcox **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Abstract:The redesign of existing energy regimes is both a highly complex endeavor and a crucial component of any transition to a more sustainable society. A diverse set of stakeholders, ranging from policymakers and industry players to activists and engaged citizens, are working to bring about this transformation through a variety of strategic energy interventions. The aim of this dissertation research is to advance understanding of the factors and dynamics that shape energy transitions at the household and community levels. Drawing on and contributing to literatures on sociotechnical imaginaries, sustainability transitions, and the politics of design and technology, this research asks the question: How can institutional interventions translate energy imaginaries into sustainable energy regime transitions? More specifically, I seek to answer the following: 1.How are energy interventions conceived of, designed, and implemented, and how are energy users imagined in these initiatives?2.How do these interventions impact modes of energy user engagement and structure energy transition pathways?3.How do energy interventions reflect and reproduce energy imaginaries, and what dynamics constrain and animate change in these domains?

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">The study will be carried out in New York State, an area embroiled in energy related controversies surrounding extractive practices (hydraulic fracturing of shale gas), transportation methods (rail and tanker transportation of highly combustible “Bakken oil”), and production methods (nuclear power at the Indian Point Generating Plant) that also possesses a nationally recognized clean energy policy agenda regarded by many as both ambitious and successful. Preliminary research involved participant observation in the Energy Analysis office of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Ongoing research will include ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews with participants representing the following three populations: <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">1.Intervention designers: staff and officials at government and quasi-government agencies, including the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the Department of Public Service (DPS), and the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), who design, oversee, and evaluate intervention programs aimed at New York households2.Interveners and mediators: energy efficiency and renewable energy contractors who are most often the de facto implementers of energy interventions, energy transition advocates, and grassroots innovators3.Members of households in transition enacting energy transitions that have taken advantage of the energy interventions on offer in New York State. Additional data will be drawn from the textual analysis of energy policy documents such as state legislation, program descriptions, solicitations, and marketing materials.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">This research will allow me to characterize and map the interaction of different epistemic communities within the energy sector while characterizing how households are enrolled as sites of energy transition over time. Together, these two threads of research (mapping epistemic communities alongside development of household energy histories) will allow me to describe how energy change occurs—and fails to occur—in practice, mobilized by different kinds of energy subjects and structural conditions. The research will contribute to the growing body of humanities and social science scholarship on energy, and to the pragmatic design of energy policy interventions that can support just, expedient, and sustainable energy transitions.